Fuel cells are highly anticipated nowadays. There are many enterprises investing substantial human resources in the research and development of fuel cells, and some initial exemplary products have been demonstrated. For convenient carry of the fuel cells, currently there exist storage devices of fuel cells, which work like printer ink cartridges and can be replaced when ink therein is exhausted. The storage devices of fuel cells function similar to the printer ink cartridges. There is usually no power device for transporting fuels, but instead, the natural physical phenomena, for example, gravity, or external energy sources, for example, driving force by an external pump, are used for transporting fuels. Using the natural physical phenomena is difficult to achieve the efficiency requirements. Thereby, storage devices of fuels usually adopt external pumps for providing power for transporting fuels.
In general, it is necessary for fuel cells to be fed with continuous fuel supply. The transportation speed of fuels is normally measured in milliliter per minute depending on the generated capacity. Larger storage devices of fuel cells need larger pumps to meet the transportation requirements, which means greater energy is needed for the operation of the pumps.
According to Taiwan Patent Number 1237416, a versatile fuel cartridge of fuel cells for storing methanol and water, methanol/water mixture, or methanol/water mixtures of varying concentrations is disclosed. The fuel cartridge utilizes a filler insert preferably occupying a small portion of the volume of the fuel cartridge. The filler insert is capable of wicking and transporting the fuel to the membrane electrode assembly. Additionally, the filler insert remains in physical contact with the fuel in any orientation of the fuel cartridge and at any fuel level in the fuel cartridge. The fuel cartridge may have more than one chamber, and preferably each chamber contains a different concentration of fuel. Optionally, the fuel cartridge may also include a pump to initiate fuel flow from the fuel reservoir. The pump may also regulate the flow of fuel and importantly to shut off the flow of fuel, when necessary.
However, no matter using a pump set in the fuel storage device or using an external pump for transporting the fuel, energy must be consumed, unless natural physical phenomena are utilized without using extra energy for supplying the pump. This is a considerably bad situation for the whole fuel cell system. Because the design of fuel cells needs to consider the power-generating efficiency of the system. If part of the generated power is used on operating the pump, the efficiency of the fuel cell will definitely be reduced. Besides, the system with an external pump for transporting the fuel adopted currently is complicated and cannot avoid the need of supplying power to the pump. Thereby, if only few or even no power is needed, the operational efficiency of the fuel cells can be improved.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a pump applied to the fuel storage device. When the fuel cell is operating, the mechanical energy stored in advance can be used to supply the fuel transportation power of the fuel without using the power generated by the fuel cells. Hence, the problems described above can be solved.